# Who will vote for Bush who didn't before? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 30, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524 "2004-07-30T00:35:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/21 "2004-07-30T16:29:56Z")
The opinions of voting age youth are more or less irrelevant, because for the last 32 years, a lower percentage of those eligible to vote have turned out than any other age group, according to the [Federal Election Commission](http://www.fec.gov/pages/agedemog.htm). To bank on them suddenly showing up this year would be to live in a dream world. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/22 "2004-07-30T16:42:17Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I don’t know about Cincinnati since I haven’t spent enough time there. > > I just don’t think the mix of religion and politics plays as well here as it does in other states. We’ve got the religious right types in Cincinnati, and while there isn’t that network of knuckle-dragging churches, their power tends to be magnified by the strength of the more staid German Catholic conservativism that rules the metro area with an iron fist. Remember, the guy who sponsored the latest anti-gay marriage law, Bill Seitz, is from Cincinnati. We also had a majority of our citizens vote to legalize discrimination against homosexuals. So yeah, Cincinnati is quite a bit more conservative than the rest of Ohio, and the local conservatives are more than happy to bring religion into it when it suits them. Note that I’m including the suburbs, and really even the whole SW corner of the state here. The city itself is more center/right Democrat. We’ve even got a Social Democrat (in everything but name) on City Council. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/23 "2004-07-30T17:17:00Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > Then there are people who change there vote…but I have a hard time seeing someone who voted for Gore (or Nader) changing to Bush based on the past four years. Well, there’s always Dennis Miller. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/24 "2004-07-30T17:19:07Z")
> [@Jess](#): > > She has always (and she is in her early 40s) voted pretty much a straight party ticket. But she had a conversion experience post-9/11 and is now an almost radically conservative Republican. The logical disconnect here never ceases to amaze me. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/25 "2004-07-30T17:34:52Z")
I’ve heard some people claim that they will not change President during the war. Of course, when I ask them if John Kerry gets elected and we’re at war when he comes up again if they’ll vote for him the same way, they get really uncomfortable. I think quite a lot of time in politics, decisions come first, reasons and justifications come later. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/26 "2004-07-30T17:49:51Z")
Buchanan voters will probably go fo GW. Except for Dade county. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/27 "2004-07-30T18:28:31Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > The logical disconnect here never ceases to amaze me. Amazing how you can get voters to jump when you scare 'em with the terrorist bogeyman, ainnit? Hey, look there! It’s another terror alert warning! Orange level! Orange level! Vote Bush in 2004 or Al Qaeda will gas yer family! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/28 "2004-07-30T19:10:18Z")
> [@booka](#): > > As an aside, that’s both predictable and sad. A relatively large, voting, non-tax-paying, and often ignorant segment of our population completely lacks a grasp of the realities of war, coupled with a pop-culture upbringing of video games and fantasy TV that makes war look “cool”. That’s rather condescending, innit? I suppose they might respond that you were old and lazy and had lost the moral courage to risk your life fighting for what you believe. (And that’s the point when I’d tell them that I didn’t allow ad hominems in my class.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/29 "2004-07-30T19:33:27Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > Buchanan voters will probably go fo GW. > > Except for Dade county. Not if they listen to him, they won’t. Buchanan himself is rabidly \*\*anti-\*\*Bush and has even suggested that true conservatives, if they can’t stomach Kerry, should vote for Nader this year. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/30 "2004-07-30T19:34:23Z")
> [@](#): > > The religious right is concentrated in solid Bush states. Kerry may not even try to contest North Carolina. > [@](#): > > The demise of that generation of voters is contributing to the Republican shift in the South. Could be a factor in Florida, Arkansas and Tennessee. > [@](#): > > there isn’t the same organized network of fundamentalist churchs as there exists in the Deep South. I see this all the time on this message board and don’t understand where this sentiment comes from. Nothing personal against you guys but this is the thread where I fight the ignorance. The idea that the South is full of right wing church goin’ GOP straight ticketers is laughable. NC has a democrat governor, the previous SC governor was a democrat and GA just elected their first GOP governer in way over 100 years [Cite](http://www.sos.state.ga.us/archives/rs/govhisroster.htm). Our governor and presidential races are always tight. Where did the idea that the GOP is a lock down here come from? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/31 "2004-07-30T19:34:46Z")
> [@furt](#): > > That’s rather condescending, innit? I suppose they might respond that you were old and lazy and had lost the moral courage to risk your life fighting for what you believe. > > (And that’s the point when I’d tell them that I didn’t allow ad hominems in my class.) Now why am I imagining **furt** as the professor in [All Quiet on the Western Front](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/plotsummary)? 😉 Say it ain’t so, **furt**! ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/32 "2004-07-30T19:36:20Z")
[QUOTE=Bruce\_Daddy] Our governor and presidential races are always tight [QUOTE] Let’s make that gubernatorial. It’s late on a Friday afternoon. :o ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/33 "2004-07-30T19:43:49Z")
**Bruce Daddy** , please don’t mischaracterize my post. I said nothing about a GOP “lock” in the South. I did refer to a GOP shift in recent years, which is obvious to anyone paying attention. For example, Georgia has gone from a Democratic governor to a Republican governor, from two Democratic Senators to one Republican and one pseudo-Republican (Zell Miller) (soon to be replaced by an actual Republican). Our congressional delegation has gone from solidly Democratic to majority Republican, and our state house is also tilting Republican after over 100 years of Democratic domination. Do you deny this shift is occuring? I merely offered one (of many) reasons for the shift. The old generation of Yellow Dog Democrats (so named because they would vote for a yellow dog before voting Republican) is dying off. (Do you deny this? Please note my location. I can give you plenty of examples of this phenomenon among my own relatives and acquaintances.) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/34 "2004-07-30T20:06:39Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Now why am I imagining **furt** as the professor in [All Quiet on the Western Front](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/plotsummary)? 😉 Say it ain’t so, **furt**! Not hardly. I think some of them _are_ naive, but then again I also think some of the hard-left “everything would be solved if we’d legalize pot” kids are naive. I view my job as challenging their preconceptions, whatever those may be. I am in fact semi-infamous for _not_ revealing what I think, but instead just contradicting all sides of every argument. I do however, take exception to those who want to disparage yound people based on age. I suspect that the same people inclined to dismiss them as foolish and misguided youth if they disagree would be asserting that college kids have more “media savvy” or the “wisdom of innocence” or some such crap if the opposite was true. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/35 "2004-07-30T20:40:08Z")
**spoke-** , I’ll give you that a shift may be happening, but years or decades will pass before we know if a shift is occuring or not. It’s sort of like the Braves winning 20 straight then dropping one and everybody screaming about the demise of the Braves. (which is another thread entirely 🙂 ) So while I conceed that a shift to the right may be underway, surely you can conceed that the South is not the Fortress of the Right most people seem to view it as? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/36 "2004-07-30T21:17:15Z")
> [@Bruce\_Daddy](#): > > So while I conceed that a shift to the right may be underway, surely you can conceed that the South is not the Fortress of the Right most people seem to view it as? Granted. In fact, I have argued elsewhere on this board that the right Democratic candidate could take several Southern states \*a la \* Clinton in '92. At least for now. (The rightward shift continues, though.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/37 "2004-07-30T21:48:44Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > The old generation of Yellow Dog Democrats (so named because they would vote for a yellow dog before voting Republican) is dying off. Actually, more than a few of those Yellow Dog Democrats have actually switched over to the Pubbies – having become disaffected with the Dems after the mid-'60s, when the Dems came down solidly on the side of civil rights and abolition of Jim Crow. It was Nixon in '68 who began the process of attracting conservative (and racist) Democrats to his party, and Reagan had even more success there. The Republican realignment of the South also owes a lot to massive immigration from other parts of the country, from the '50s to the present – and many of those immigrants were Republicans back home and remained so when they came to the South. My own state, Florida, is hardly Southern in culture at all, any more. The **majority** here are non-Southerners or the children or grandchildren of non-Southerners. My mother’s family has been here since time out of mind, but my father’s family came to Florida from New Jersey shortly around 1950. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/38 "2004-07-30T21:57:29Z")
At the risk of getting REALLY clobbered, like the last time I answered this question in this forum, I voted for Clinton, I voted for Gore, and I will be voting for GW this time. I would state my reasons, but I don’t feel like subjecting myself to the slamming or the condescending smirks that came at me before. Just answering the question. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/39 "2004-07-30T22:04:42Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Yeah, but how many of them will vote? > > Some of the most ardent Bush supporters that I’ve talked to lately aren’t even _registered._ He’s got the NASCAR and the religious folks firmly behind him, but I wonder how many of them will bother to show up at the polls. Define “NASCAR” folks for me, please. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524/40 "2004-07-30T22:17:46Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Define “NASCAR” folks for me, please. Pick up one of Jeff Foxworthy’s books or albums. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-vote-for-bush-who-didnt-before/257524.md?page=3)